


The Undoing

by dancing_satyr



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Bottom!Flint, Emotional Sex, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:51:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8490529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancing_satyr/pseuds/dancing_satyr
Summary: "Silver had intended to put up more of a fight, to at least delay the collision that had always been inevitable, and yet, Silver knew that any protestation at this point was futile.  Flint’s mind was made up.  And Flint was nothing if not self-destructive."





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first work in this fandom. I love this pairing and the characters so much and really wanted to take a crack at writing them. I hope you enjoy!

They were losing this war. No, thought Silver bitterly, they had already lost it. Losing implied there was yet some ground to gain back, but the day’s events had made it clear to him that the loss was now all but inevitable. 

Silver did not give voice to this realization once he and the remaining crew had made it back aboard the ship, but he did not need to. They already knew what he knew. The men wore it on their faces as plainly as they did the thick coating of blood, sweat, and grime of their ill-fated attack.

When the ship was underway and he could no longer bear the crushing atmosphere on deck, he made his way to the Captain’s cabin, the labored metallic thud of his prosthetic announcing his arrival. Warm light seeped from beneath the door; Flint was already inside. Silver opened it and shut it softly behind him.

It took a moment for it to sink in that Flint was standing entirely naked before him. His skin emitted a faint pink glow as if he had tried to scrub away more than just the blood from the battle. With his back to Silver, Flint was attempting to clean a fresh gash on his right bicep. The bright red wetness of it glimmered cruelly in the candlelight, stark against his densely freckled skin. 

There was burdensome tension in the muscled contours of Flint’s body; Silver couldn’t begin to imagine all the ways in which Flint was experiencing the pain of their failure. It was surreal to him that Flint, always so furiously driven, could now stand there defeated, the fight truly having gone out of him.

Any trepidation that Silver might have once felt in approaching the man in such an exposed state was long gone. He took the flannel from Flint’s grasp and set to tending the laceration. Flint stood there and let him, silent and unflinching. Once Flint’s wound was bandaged, Silver took clean water and cloth to clean himself. He removed all of his clothes save for the boot. 

Flint observed as Silver washed, gaze heavy but not oppressive. Silver knew what Flint looked like when he was warring with himself, but this was not it. Instead, he held about himself the air of a man resigned, the twitch at the corner of his eye the only sign that he stood on the edge of a precipice, waiting for the right moment to fall.

When Flint next moved, it was to maneuver Silver to sit on the bed. Silver looked on, entranced, as Flint knelt on the floor before him and removed the boot. He rarely wore the thing anymore and was well aware of the rawness of his skin underneath, but the sting of it only dimly registered through the heady sensation that overcame him at Flint’s touch. Flint’s hands were so kind and gentle as he bathed the disfigured remnant of his leg, Silver could have wept. 

It was a comfort to be cared for in this small way as if he were simply a man. If one-legged creatures did not receive affection and monsters did not touch with tenderness, then surely the two of them could not be those aberrations.

“I wonder,” began Flint brokenly, speaking for the first time since Silver had entered the room, “if he would even recognize me, as I am now.”

Silver did not have to ask Flint his meaning. That ghost had always been there, implicitly woven into the very fabric of their war, and Silver felt his presence around Flint all the more keenly now in the wake of their defeat. It was the profound loss of his love that had twisted James McGraw into Captain Flint, but what was Captain Flint if he had been deprived of his only means of retribution for that loss?

“You think he wouldn’t understand, that he might be… what? Ashamed?” asked Silver, gazing at Flint’s worn features.

“Shame,” murmured Flint, a mournful smile tugging at his mouth, “was only ever my demon. Never his.”

Flint caressed his hand up Silver’s thigh and across his abdomen to rest over his heart. Silver brought his own hand up to cover it.

“I’m so tired, John,” said Flint, the sentiment ringing true in the wavering timbre of his voice. “And it’s been so long…”

When Flint’s eyes locked with his, Silver saw some unfamiliar emotion he could not name flicker in their depths, and it unnerved him to his core. 

“I meant it when I said that I would be the end of you. I do not wish it, but I know it to be true,” said Silver with more honesty than he had thought himself capable of.

Flint exhaled shakily and Silver felt his strong calloused hand tremble against his chest. That unfamiliar flicker grew in Flint’s eyes until it shone with such intensity that only then could Silver recognize it. It was fear. Fear of being vulnerable, fear of letting go, fear of relinquishing control.

James Flint feared him.

The revelation intoxicated Silver, making him feel nauseous and powerful and humble all at once. Before he could do anything more than stare at Flint in awe, Flint crossed the divide between them to claim Silver’s lips with his own.

Silver had intended to put up more of a fight, to at least delay the collision that had always been inevitable, and yet, Silver knew that any protestation at this point was futile. Flint’s mind was made up. And Flint was nothing if not self-destructive.

There was no explosive fight for dominance in the kiss, just the measured press and slide of their lips, which was no less searing for the lack of contention that was so often present between them. Silver was happy to allow Flint to plunder his mouth with a slow, rhythmic ardor, like a man who had been too long from home and was feeling through the dark to find his way back.

Their intermingling breaths now came in gasps as their hips pressed together. Silver’s cock ached against the heat of Flint’s skin, growing harder as Flint steadily unraveled in his arms. 

“What do you need?” Silver whispered against Flint’s cheek, hands on either side of his face to keep him centered. Because he suspected that Flint was past the point of speech, he added, “Will you show me?”

Flint turned from him to access a chest of drawers near the bed to withdraw a bottle of oil. He then climbed atop the bed and lay down on his back, reaching an arm out to pull Silver to him. Silver gradually lowered his body down atop Flint’s and matching sighs escaped them once the scarred planes of their skin met from head to toe. 

Silver pulled his head back slightly so as to properly gaze into Flint’s face. The fear was still prominent in his eyes, swimming in that green sea alongside his lust and pain and something that Silver wanted to call love. Perhaps he merely saw his own reflected there.

Everything about Flint seemed to soften, from the way his hands stroked Silver’s curls as kindly as they had tended his leg, to the manner in which he let his powerful thighs fall open to gently cradle Silver’s hips. Flint’s whole body was trembling, likely due to the sheer force of will it took to lay himself bare before Silver. 

Flint’s fear clearly did not negate the trust he put in Silver, something which spoke volumes about the way in which their relationship had evolved. Despite the overwhelming probability that they both would suffer in the end, Silver was determined to make Flint feel safe and cared for while they still had hold of this moment. Flint would never find the peace he had so arduously sought after all those years, but if Silver could bring him only a small temporary measure of it, he would.

Silver took the bottle, unstoppered it, and poured a generous amount of the viscous liquid on to his fingers. He only lifted himself off of Flint insofar as he could reach down between his legs. Flint’s breath gave an audible hitch once Silver’s fingers found that tight ring of muscle, so Silver brought his other hand up to cup Flint’s face, thumb stroking over his cheek. When his finger finally breached Flint and felt the hot clench of him, Silver considered that he was likely the first person to touch him in this way since Thomas.

Silver’s past sexual encounters had never been loving nor languorous; the purpose had been to scratch the itch and part ways. But being with Flint was so very different. It struck him that just as Flint now held no one but Silver close as his partner and confidante, Silver held no one but Flint. It made him want to draw out the experience and memorize every detail, every expression that passed Flint’s face as Silver carefully worked him open. 

Once Silver’s fingers had moved deep enough to find that sensitive protrusion inside, he stroked and pressed until Flint’s chest was heaving and little desperate moans escaped his throat. Flint was practically transformed under the influence of Silver’s ministrations; the granite-like quality of his features seemed to erode until they revealed a bare outline of the man he had once been. Silver had never seen Flint so unguarded and he felt drunk on the knowledge that he was the one to make Flint come apart like this.

After a time - Silver could not say if it had been minutes or hours - Flint’s muscles became more relaxed and pliant. Still, he added more oil and continued to prepare Flint a while longer. Somewhat surprisingly, Flint made no attempt to rush him, seemingly lost to the sensations careening through his body. His skin was flushed and his cock lay stiff and leaking against his abdomen, which rose and fell with his labored breathing. 

He was beautiful.

“Are you ready?” asked Silver, voice hoarse with arousal. 

Flint gave a low hum of assent and wound his legs around Silver’s waist. Silver slicked himself up and aligned the head of his cock against Flint’s entrance. His walls gave way with minimal resistance as Silver slowly and carefully pressed in. The ecstasy in Flint’s expression must have mirrored his own, so immense was the pleasure he felt at being gripped inside Flint’s tight heat. Silver was far too overwhelmed to move yet, so he lay still atop Flint for a while, the two of them breathing each other’s air. Flint desperately clutched Silver to him and Silver found himself holding on just as tightly, accepting that he needed this closeness every bit as much as Flint did. 

He had once thought that to be close to Flint was to allow himself to be taken into a sucking black void, a cold and miserable place that he risked never escaping from. But once he began his descent into it, the darkness had seduced him in such unexpected ways. Tonight, he had finally come together with Flint in that darkness, and Silver found that it was warm and alive, thrumming like the wings of a thousand nocturnal creatures. As broken as the two of them were, he wondered how they had managed to resist taking this comfort in each other for so long.

They began to rock together in a rhythm as fluidly gentle as the roll and pitch of their ship upon the swelling sea, and Silver believed they might succeed in melding together so that the shards of them could build a new whole. At least until time and circumstance eventually battered them apart again, like so much driftwood dashed by the waves. But in that moment, Silver felt as if none of it mattered, not the loss of all they had fought for nor the dire uncertainty of their future. All that was real was the man beneath him and the almost unbearable pleasure that kept on rising to brutal heights.

Silver continued to fuck into Flint at a slow and measured pace, although he felt drunk with lust as if they were rutting like animals. But that was the way of Flint’s pull over him; even as it terrified Flint to give over control, there was some innate power he would always retain and exert over Silver that couldn’t be extinguished. It was dizzying and Silver would not be free of it, even if given the choice.

Flint was only holding on by a thread now, and with each thrust of their hips, Silver felt it fray a little more. Silver was also dangerously close to orgasm, but he needed to make Flint come first. The man looked so completely undone, Silver considered he had the power to send Flint over the edge with only his cock inside him and the sweat-slicked friction between their bodies.

“You can let go,” Silver murmured against Flint’s lips. “I’ve got you.”

He felt vindicated when Flint suddenly spasmed beneath him, his seed spilling onto their abdomens. Curiously, in the second before the forceful contractions of Flint’s passage brought Silver to his own climax, he saw with startling clarity the light freckles covering Flint’s pleasure-slackened face. They somehow morphed into the stars that burst behind Silver’s eyelids when he came, hard, his body shuddering as Flint soothed his hands over the taut expanse of his back.

They kissed deeply as they came down from their shared high. Silver was reluctant to separate himself from Flint, still reveling in their newfound intimacy, but the twinge in his leg was growing harder to ignore. He carefully pulled out of Flint, who whined at the loss, and rolled away onto his side. Flint moved to retrieve the damp cloth he had been washing with earlier and used it to clean them both off; when he finished he laid back down with a heavy sigh.

Something momentous had shifted within Flint. Silver could see it in the countenance of his face, in the way his breath now flowed, in and out, the cadence of it somehow different than before. He reached down to take Flint’s warm hand in his, sensing that Flint still needed that physical contact. It was a precious gift that Flint had given Silver, to make himself so agonizingly vulnerable in a way he had strived never to be again, not after the terrible grief it had caused him the first time. Despite how much Silver cherished that vulnerability, he hated himself for being the cause of Flint’s weakness. There was a clear fissure in Flint’s armor now, there to be exploited, manipulated, torn open by anyone who might seize the opportunity.

“How do you feel?” asked Silver, finding that he was completely unsure of Flint’s answer.

There was a pause before Flint replied, voice thick with long suppressed emotion. “Relieved.”

His eyes were pointed at the ceiling, but Silver knew they were looking years and miles away. A tear escaped, rolling down into Flint’s shorn hairline.

“It’s alright,” said Flint after a long silence, as if he could hear the thoughts churning in Silver’s mind. “If you are truly to be my end, then it is an end I would welcome.”

Silver, with his deep-seated need to self-preserve, found he could not fully empathize with the sentiment, but couldn’t deny that it made a kind of sense. James McGraw had been undone by love; was it not fitting that Captain Flint be undone by the same?

“Before everything comes apart,” said Flint, now turning to look at Silver, “we need to bury the last of it.”

There was something so final in Flint’s tone, that even as he felt his heart swell with the full realization of what they had found in each other, it began to break at the impending loss of it. And for the first time, Silver wondered if the last remaining human parts of himself could survive it.

“Yes,” agreed Silver, gazing unblinkingly into Flint’s eyes. The fear there had been replaced with resolve. “We’ll bury it. Somewhere they’ll never be able to touch it.”

But that was a matter for tomorrow. Silver laid his head on Flint’s chest and let the steady rise and fall of it lull him into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This is certainly both the saddest thing I've ever written and the smuttiest thing I've ever written. I struggled a bit with writing this, so I'm glad I finally get to post it! 
> 
> I very much appreciate you taking the time to read it!


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